Google Drive will use AI to improve Shared With Me content

Any heavy Google Drive user knows the “Shard with Me” section can easily get cluttered and difficult to navigate, particularly if it is used for school and/or business. Here to help with that is Google’s artificial intelligence, which will soon start guessing which files and people you’re looking for and making them more visible. As well, the platform will start intelligently organizing the “Shared with Me” section.

Depending on how it is used, Google Drive can contain thousands of files, and many of them may be from other users who are sharing content with you. Searching for the specific document, photo, or other file you’re looking for gets tricky in these cases, but as with many things, artificial intelligence can help.

Using artificial intelligence, Google Drive will start predicting the content you’re looking for, as well as the people you may be interested in. According to Google, searching for files based on the content owner is the most popular method. For this reason, Google is also going to start organizing “Shared with Me” content in a way that shows people in addition to files.

Click on the “Shared with Me” section now and you’ll likely just see a bunch of files. Soon, though, you’ll see something like in the screenshot above. The Quick Access section shows people and files shared by those people, as well as a section with content alongside the important details: who shared it and when.

Google explains that its system learns as it goes along and so predictions will improve over time. As well, the company teases that machine learning and AI-based features are being explored, ones that will make it easier for users to collaborate and find files.